The Lee fire burning in northwestern Colorado has scorched over 88,000 acres in less than a week—and is now so large it is creating its own weather system, officials said.
High winds and dry conditions are fueling the flames of the Lee fire, which is now the sixth-largest in Colorado’s history.
As of Saturday evening, the fire had burned through 88,755 acres and was zero percent contained, according to an update on InciWeb, a government website that tracks fires.
Extreme fire activity has started to create its own weather system, Tyler Nathe, Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team’s operations chief, said in an update Friday.
“It built up what we like to call a pyrocumulus cloud. That’s where it punched up above 30,000 feet,” Nathe said. “When it does that phenomenon, it starts to create its own weather at that point, and so it was creating some additional outflow and inflow winds at ground level, which was increasing the fire behavior as the main fire front was moving down to the southeast.”
More than 700 firefighters are battling the fire, which started after a lightning strike west of the town of Meeker a week ago.
Evacuation orders are in place for residents in the Rio Blanco and Garfield counties area as a red flag weather warning continues.
Elsewhere, a brush fire in a mountainous area north of Los Angeles forced thousands of people to evacuate as firefighters worked to get it under control.
Hundreds of firefighters battled the Canyon Fire after it ignited Thursday afternoon in Ventura and Los Angeles counties, as temperatures hit 100 degrees mixed with strong winds.
By Saturday, the Canyon fire was winding down and officials lifted the evacuation orders.
Meanwhile, the Dragon Bravo fire on the north rim of the Grand Canyon continues to burn a month on. The blaze, which started because of a lightning strike, has scorched 141,147 acres as of August 9 and is 36 percent contained, according to officials.
